The LBX Show #79 - World Cup Playbook, Black Mirror, Influencer Marketing, & More! Artwork

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The LBX Show #79 - World Cup Playbook, Black Mirror, Influencer Marketing, & More!

May 31, 2026 • Brandon Willey • Season 4 • Episode 79

0:00 | 47:44

Welcome And Show Lineup

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Joining you in now to the LBX Show. With your host, Brandon Wyatt. What do you buy the LBX collective? Your community to connect, engage, and inspire.

SPEAKER_04 0:22

All right. Well, welcome everybody to the LBX show for May 31st, 2026. I'm your host, Brandon Wiley, and we have a great show lined up for you today. First, we're going to dive into some news you should know, and uh it's gonna be like a like a World Cup special edition, News You Should Know. And then we'll close it out with uh we'll then go into a solid open and shut with Kevin Williams to review all the opening and closing trends from the last week. And then finally, Chuck DeMonty is back with Promo Pro Tips, and this week he is discussing the influencer marketing. So you're gonna definitely wanna stick around and catch that segment. All right, let's dive into some news you should know. All

Intercard Events And Where To Meet

SPEAKER_04 1:05

right, well, we've got our inner card lineup for 2026. The future is here. Meet with the experts at InnerCard and coming up there are going to be in a few different places. So just this week, they're going to be at the Minnesota Operator Show, that is MoMA, in June 2nd to the 4th in where? Minnesota. Uh, all right, so they are gonna be there, and then they're gonna be traveling to IAPA Asia Expo. Uh, this is in Hong Kong this year, and it is June 9th to the 12th. So make sure you get out to uh get out to see the Intercard experts there. And then if you're not gonna be traveling to China anytime soon or or you know Asia, uh then you know, go and see them at Bull Expo in just you know a couple of weeks. I feel like Bull Expo is going to be here before we know it. It's like four weeks away, and it's June 28th to the 2nd in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm really excited to go back to Nashville. One of the first Bull Expos I got to visit was actually at the Gaylord Oprieland. And uh it's an amazing, beautiful resort, beautiful convention center, and Bull Expo always does a phenomenal job, putting on a great show, good education, good expo. So looking forward to being there. And I will see you at that one. I'm not gonna be at uh Minnesota Operator Show or IPA Asia, but I will be at Bull Expo. So also if you want to uh hang out, just let me know. And uh, you know, we'll meet up. We'll, you know, gonna be walking around the show floor, gonna be hanging out, doing stuff. Um, want to see uh going down to Printer's Alley, some blues music, all that good stuff. You know, absolutely love my time in Nashville. All right, so that is the InterCard lineup for 2026 and for the next few weeks. All right,

World Cup Promotions You Can Copy

SPEAKER_04 2:34

so the World Cup is here. Uh well, it's almost here. It's like coming in like just like two weeks. So it's June 11th is the is the kickoff, uh June 11th, June 12th. June 12th is the kickoff day. Uh no, I'm wrong. June 11th is actually the first game. June 12th is when the US plays. But anyway, um, bottom line, the World Cup is here, and a lot of the big brands in our space are beginning to roll out the promotions. So just going to give you a couple of examples of some of those promotions. This is a huge opportunity to take advantage of this in your community. The World Cup is here in the US, and especially if you've got a facility in one of the cities where a game is being played, then you should absolutely be trying to take advantage of this, run special promotions, create new FB uh, you know, concepts, whatever it is that you feel like you need to or want to do, uh, go ahead and do it, right? But this is the kind of thing like we talk about seasonal packages, seasonal items, seasonal F B, seasonal events that you're hosting, all those different things. Like this is a great way to rally the community. You have potential, you have bars, you have FP already, bring them in, get TV set up, get a projector set up. If you don't have sports bar or you know, TV, that kind of thing. Like you, there's so many ways that you could take advantage of this. And so, just gonna give a couple of examples, some of the bigger brands that are doing things. So, first one up is Dave and Busters. Uh, they are uh you know bringing uh you know competition. So like they had a really big viral success around their human crane. They did a Valentine's Day human crane activation, and it was really super successful. So they're now doing the same thing for one week uh across their Dave and Buster locations in the US, and uh they are taking their human crane and giving everybody a chance to win once-in-a-lifetime prizes. So, first time uh for uh soccer fans can actually go into the claw machine. You actually see a guy hanging in there. They're not big tickets like this. Like that's just actually just an overlay if you're looking at the video. They're not big tickets, but basically you can uh compete for these tickets to multiple matches across the country, including the final championship match. So, like, pretty big deal. Um, some of these tickets are going for you know decent amount of money. Um, but you know, if you uh so you basically you can grab other oversized prizes, uh, there's be you know buried amongst the there's like soccer themed inflatables, uh, there will be the tickets in there. Some of those actually games will be the US versus Turkey match, which is uh uh there'll be then a round of 32 match, and then a quarter final match, and then also the final match, and they can win seats to the lower bowl, even, which is amazing. Uh, so the ones who don't win those tickets, you can still obviously come away with your inflatable stuff, but uh you also have a chance to win exclusive prizes. There's uh free gameplay, there's free food, and uh, you know, a lot more stuff. And this is all happening during the week of June 11th to the 17th. So basically the kickoff week of World Cup. World Cup runs through the middle of July, uh, but uh but they are running this promotion specifically at the beginning of the uh the beginning of the World Cup tournament. And so the first week. So June 11th to June 17th. But beyond the human crane, they're doing a couple of other things. So they're uh let me see here. So they're also doing you know, some uh obviously uh so they can catch every match on they have 40 foot screens, they have more than 30 TVs in every location, and they have some tournament-themed food and drink offerings. Some of those, like for example, is this slider uh trio. It's an all-American slider. There's a Canadian maple slider and then a Mexican street slider, because obviously, those of you know and you saw the logo at the beginning, World Cup is being played across North America, so Canada, Mexico, and the US. And so, of course, they've done this really cool FB trio slider. Great idea, something you could easily implement in your facility if you have these types. If you're already doing sliders, why not then modify those sliders a little bit to have a unique promotional type FB item? Charge a little bit more for it, too, by the way. So they um the brand is also then going to offer some limited time soccer merch. Um, there's some elevated in viewing uh in-store viewing experiences. They have two new soccer-inspired arcade games. So one is called World Soccer, which is uh a four-player soccer showdown and then kick and win, where the guests can play the uh you know to play for the chance to win a mini soccer ball from their favorite country. So um, you know, pretty cool stuff. And they're also going to have a hat trick watch experience. This is a special ticketed watch party event for the kickoff and championship matches. So the very first match and then the championship matches, um the championship match, and this is all you can eat wings and fries during the matches, unlimited gameplay all day long on the day of the games, and they're selling these tickets for $24.99. Again, something you could do. You could have a hat trick type of experience or whatever you want to call it on the opening kickoff day, the championship, or the quarterfinals, or whatever. Sell those as extra tickets and have find a way to create a unique experience and also boost your uh revenue and top line. So, anyway, that is uh that is what Dave and Busters is doing. So uh Top Golf is also launching some international soccer themed experiences across all of their 100 venues this summer. So um this includes uh some FB, which we'll talk about, some soccer goals that are actually in venue, and then they've actually modified one of their core games to look soccer. So let's dig into it a little bit. So, first of all, they're gonna broadcast every single global matchup on their HD ven uh screens throughout the venue, uh, in a bay or at the bar for the duration of the tournament. And some of their locations, actually, if you have been there, um, have the uh have screens actually all the way out on the back wall too, like big giant massive screens. Not all of the venues do, but some of them do. So they'll obviously be broadcasting every single soccer game from June 11th to July 19th. And uh you can watch from any area of the venue, because obviously they have bars, uh, and you know, access is operating as usual throughout the tournament. So um you can also do uh 63 other venues are going to have full-size soccer goals. They haven't said necessarily which ones, but this picture here shows like the soccer goal is actually out there in the field. Um, so 63 soccer goals that you can then shoot and try to get your ball through the soccer goal. Um, you know, and yeah, basically anyway, just for fun, I guess, because it's not actually uh maybe this one is being scored, I don't know, but it's like not in one of their scoring nets. So I don't know that it would actually be part of it. I think it's just for the hell of it. Um, and then they're also reintroduced introducing a version of their popular game, Shot Shuffle, uh, but it's soccer inspired. So from May 28th, actually, so like just started uh this last Friday through July 19th. The game has been changed to where uh there are uh country flags and there's a soccer ball tracer. I think I have a here we go. So there's country flags and a soccer ball tracer there. Uh so like instead of it being the ball, the normal golf ball tracer, it's like a soccer ball that's going out there. So, you know, just an overlay, a graphical overlay. That's fine. But look, you know, it still is kind of leaning into the World Cup vibes. They uh also are rolling out a limited time menu. So uh they've got uh a bunch of different summer specific menu items that are all summer long, and then they have some soccer-inspired menu items. And you know, I was a little bit disappointed by the the drinks. Um they, you know, but whatever, like they're dealing with the stuff that they already have, and so they're trying to make the best of it. But they have a breakaway breeze, which is a casumitos block of tequila with strawberry passion fruit and Q sparkling grapefruit, and it's in a collectible cup at selective venues while supplies last. So that's one a nice thing it is a collectible cup, and then they have the global cup, which ironically is not collectible, uh, but it's called a cup uh for the drink. So I don't know if they're trying to be like a Pim's cup or something, I don't know. But a customizable cocktail featuring spirits from participating soccer countries with lime and ginger beer. So uh that is available for just ten dollars. So again, you can create these unique, uh unique drinks and menu items and everything else that uh is tied to World Cup. So if you haven't already done it, get on it because you got the world coming up, World Cup coming up in a week and a half. So get going now. Uh, anyway, that is uh, and if you're not going to, just enjoy the game, enjoy the matches, it should be fun. All right. Speaking

Topgolf Las Vegas Opens The Pool

SPEAKER_04 10:31

of Top Golf, the hideaway pool. Did you know that there was a top golf the pool? I didn't actually, but the the hideaway pool at Top Golf Las Vegas is open for the season. They opened a couple of years ago. This is their flagship location, um, and it is also their largest location in the you know in their portfolio. But it uh what's what's cool about the pool is it's a 21 and over spot, first of all, so there's not gonna be any kids, and it's a place where they say cool off between turns at the bays. I don't know that I want to like go jump in the pool and then like go swing a golf club. I feel like it's gonna slip right out of my hands and go fling it into the into the field. But uh anyway, the pool has no cover charge and there's music, pool side seating, quick access to food and drinks, and nearby golf bays. Um, they can actually guests can book private cabanas with reserve seating. There's overhead heating, even uh mini fridge and full FB service. Uh towels are provided, lockers are available, and complimentary floaties are off also offered. Um, I'm assuming it's not the floaties that go in your arms because these are adults. Um, assuming it's floaties that you can then sit in and just float around in the pool. Uh, but anyway, there are two pool areas. So one is on level three, and uh one is then an exclusive level four pool reserved for level four bay guests. So, like if you rent out the bay in level four, then you get this exclusive smaller pool, but it is pretty cool. You can see the picture here, it overlooks the other larger pool as well. And uh anyway, um, so I've just a little background on this this top golf, which is pretty fascinating. Um, it's first of all, it's the biggest top golf in the world, it's the flagship for the brand. And then it's four stories, as I mentioned, there's two pools, as you know, VIP suites and cabanas everywhere. Uh, and then they actually have a top top golf swing suite fitting studio with Callaway Golf Fitting Experts, which I wonder how that's going to be once they you know finish breaking apart. Um, but bars, bays, parties, events, blah, blah, blah, whatever, like tons of stuff going on. Um, but you know, the the you know, main thing is the highway pool this summer, which is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. throughout the summer. I find it interesting though that they don't leave it open later, considering top golf is open late, like you know, at least until eight, maybe 10 o'clock, especially if they're trying to create that party vibe. But anyway, uh, I did not know, and you know, we were talking often like, hey, the highway pool's open. Maybe go check it out next time I'm in Vegas. Uh not to go swimming, but just go check it out. So, anyway, all that being said, that is news you should know. Coming up right after the break, we've got Kevin Williams with open and shut. Intercard makes cashless easy with award-winning readers, self-serve kiosks, real-time reporting, and flexible guest payment options. From plate cards and credit cards to mobile payments and QR code. It's introducing the industry's first car system in 1989. Intercard has helped operators reduce cash handling, increase guest spending, and run smarter venues. Intercard is the world leader in cashless technology. If you aren't already part of a global family of customers, we hope you'll become one soon. Visit IntercardInc.com to learn more.

SPEAKER_05 13:39

Hey,

New Openings And Industry Watchlist

SPEAKER_05 13:40

big hello to the latest open and shut. I hope I find you well, Brandon.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

Doing well, yeah, doing well. Excited for uh excited for this one. It looks like we've got uh quite a bit going on.

SPEAKER_05 13:53

Well, it's it's back to the large number, I would say. Uh, but I would also say that it it's it's kind of a telling structure, but hey, let's get into it rather than teaser.

SPEAKER_04 14:06

All right, all right, let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 14:08

So starting off, and there is the rundown of venues that we're going to be touching on, and here is the tourists of pain, showing where most of them sit for those that are into that thing. Jumping straight in, and our friends at Droyopolis, or should we call them CA Sega Geopolis, the uh operation owned by the Chinese Chinese corporation using the Sega branding and building upon their F and B operation. Now, some of you will go, hey, this isn't really anything major new. We know that Dreopolis has their sports operation, which is kind of their active entertainment uh to the B Sport event or the uh Cal Sports or the Round One equivalent. Well, this one's slightly different. This is a brand new take on the uh operation. This is Joopolis Sport X. Uh, and Joopolis Sport X uh is a digital sports uh amusement environment uh comprising some really interesting, uh what I would call active entertainment, immersive active entertainment. They've dropped in a uh Valo Arena into uh the Tokyo facility. They also have the illuminated floor and some uh other entertainment.

SPEAKER_04 15:28

So what's interesting is that they actually call themselves a, and maybe this is a translation issue, but they call them an attractions and live park. Um, and Google does reference them as an amusement or as a as an amusement park, also. Um, but I don't know what a live park is. I've not heard this before. I mean, they have uh a Gekion live coaster when I'm looking here. So maybe this is like has to do with this, like uh, you know, a particular coaster that they have that's called a live coaster, but I don't know why they call it a live park. But yeah, they have a uh a bunch of different rides and attractions in addition to it being uh you know this adventure park as well. I mean, it's a multi-floor uh thing. I mean, this thing is massive, frankly. Um, and the number of attractions they have on each floor is pretty significant.

SPEAKER_05 16:14

I'm I'm interested to see that uh the Jopolis investment, uh the Jopolis sport investment has gone in this direction. So they've you know they they already have about uh three uh Dreopolis sports open, two in Japan, one in China, if my memory serves me right. Uh so now this new breed of Dreopolis Sports X, it moves away from the Diopolis Core brand, which was uh uh a mid-scale uh uh indoor amusement park. And as you say, uh its terminology is a little bit um hard to nail down. We will have to wait and see how this venue does. We will also have to wait and see how many more of these are going to open. We do understand that CA Sega Troyopolis, the uh parent operation that all of this is under, is going to be going through changes. But we could touch upon upon that a little bit more in uh sound.

Crossbar Soft Opening Raises Questions

SPEAKER_05 17:14

Moving on, and we jump straight into a question mark. I'm putting this out there, you know, uh the uh open and shut covers both soft openings, full openings, and redevelopments of uh brands in the market. And we were meant to be or are under a soft opening of the crossbar um toker social-like kind of uh environment. My sources tell me that they're in soft opening, though I can't really give you much more information than I don't have. I don't have any pictures of inside the facility, and I don't even have a web page to send you to. And there are two. I mean, yeah, and that's scary. There is a crossbar uh entertainment facility that I can send you to, but that's in Brighton. That is a bar that opened a couple of months ago, and that is aimed at female football players. Um, so we've already got a problem with the crossbar name to start with, and now we have a super situation, which is they have received multiple investment, they're carrying out a allegedly a soft opening, and I can't point you to anything.

SPEAKER_04 18:29

Yeah, I mean, I don't, you know, we've talked about this before, but like not having a marketing presence, a website presence when you're not only just going into a soft opening, I mean, opening at all, but putting out any sort of press releases, let alone like this is something you should have while you're actually under construction, so that people who go to print works in Manchester can see that there's something coming and coming soon, scan this QR code, get information, sign up for announcements and whatever. There's lots of reasons why you want to have something available ahead of time. And you this is uh it seems compelling, but again, all we've seen so far are really simple computer-generated concept images. We've not seen anything in real life yet on this, and uh, you know, has to be uh, you know, I'm just always surprised when something like this of what you know clearly is going to be or trying to be a token social uh multi-location brand at some point in the future, if this one works out, uh, to not have that type of marketing, strong marketing presence ahead of time. And the printworks uh lease payments cannot be cheap either, to uh you know, to not really be promoting this to drive as much foot traffic in as possible right out of the gate.

SPEAKER_05 19:45

And we have two venues to consider. We have both the printworks venue that will be opening or is going to open directly in June, and we also have uh the Liverpool One venue that is going to open at the end of June, beginning of July. If you're not, you come up with a press release telling us if you're not going to do this. If you are, you are going to have a press campaign, a marketing and branding and website campaign, as you say, to drive future traffic to your facility to open uh when you open the doors, but also to establish the brand. I am placing a very large flashing light on this one, and I will be keeping a very close eye uh when the doors are open or when we get some uh uh reporting of how the soft opening is going on because there's something going on here uh and we need to know more. But again, we're just uh putting it out there.

VR Growth And Immersive IP Walkthroughs

SPEAKER_05 20:43

Moving on to uh our constant expanding sandbox universe, and we are up to uh, well, my database tells me 88 facilities. Maryland gets a sandbox following the usual form factor, no F and B, and this one is part of the LOL Entertainment uh franchise operation.

SPEAKER_04 21:05

Well, you know, uh one of the things we can probably expect from uh is to see a few additional openings of some other ancillary locations around this sandbox. LOL likes to uh put some of their other concepts side by side or at least within you know proximity of each other to help leverage both staffing and uh, you know, and also be able to do cross promotions, et cetera. So uh I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see, at least in the next few months or you know, course of the next six months, some additional openings in Baltimore near the sandbox VR.

SPEAKER_05 21:37

Yeah, I I call it clustering, where they are as the master franchisee uh of a number of these kinds of brands. They gathered them together, as you say, benefits for staffing, benefits for uh audience retention, stuff like that. I'm also looking forward to the guys at LOL uh maybe during IALPA, giving us a little bit more transparency to how these things are. Doing for them and what changes they're going to be making, because we're getting very close now to a period of time where you're going to start thinking about what next for your uh open facilities. Our friends at Zero Latency have a cluster of opening announcements, mainly in Germany. So their German franchisee out there has uh opened up um two facilities, and uh, you know, it is you know the Bremen facility falls into the same uh structure as their uh you know as their others. It is uh a single arena with um a Games Master uh VIP area, uh, and you know it is it is what it is, and it brings it up to now 152 uh facilities under the Zero Latency. We have been reporting in Sound Off that Zero Latency has been doing a franchisee meetup where they've been sort of educating and informing their uh operators on what they're doing next. I can say that they have quite a major hardware update planned for their systems. And of course, we've already talked about they have a number of licensed IP content in the works. So uh with the cyberpunk uh game experience being one of them.

SPEAKER_04 23:18

Yeah, I think it's great when the franchisors bring their franchise Cs together. One, just to give them, you know, give them updates. I mean, most French, the larger franchise groups have an actual conference every year where they bring them all into one, you know, they open up, they bring them on the sponsors, the different vendors for the franchise that come. That's great. That that's once a year. It allows the franchisees to network with each other, get to know each other. But I think on a more regular basis, the more that you can really build camaraderie, uh, build those open connections between other franchisees who tend to not compete with each other because they are not in the same regions, they can learn a lot from each other by having that open communication flow. And I think the the better operating franchise groups tend to do that more frequently versus the others, where you don't even have an annual conference, let alone regular updates from your franchise or if you follow the franchise industry mantra, you've come across two types of franchise uh investment.

SPEAKER_05 24:19

The company that throws their uh their brand at uh an operator and lets them sink or swim, and the others that help them through the process and offers them a family kind of relationship. And we've seen this with Top Golf, we've seen this with Chuck E. Cheese, we've seen this with Zero Latency. It is that kind of gathering everybody together and kumbaya together. Uh I would say it is important to keep a close eye on zero latency. Now we're at a very important pivotal moment regarding their financing, their uh future structures, and their plans going forwards. And I expect around the time of I Alpha that we will have some uh uh announcements about what they're really looking to achieve with all of the investment that they put into the operation. Another free roaming immersive environment, but this time on the virtual adventure approach. Um, the Affinity Experiences venue in Montreal, we've been talking a lot about. They have invested heavily in their uh environments, their venue, and they have also been directly involved in content creator to go into that. And the first of those major investments post Felix and Paul uh are now uh taking root. And the Black Mirror experience that we talked about uh a few sound-offs ago has now been opened at the Infinity uh experience, 60 minutes, walk around in groups, uh experiencing the universe that is Black Mirror. Um what can we say? It is a proven formula. Uh, it's just going to be interesting to see how the Montreal location does with this, and they're going to be soon also dropping in some other branded experiences, such as one based upon uh the Blade Runner universe for next year. Again, uh using the Universe uh platform, which is uh ubiquitous uh along with uh uh the uh the others, and well as using fever uh as a major partner in this operation, which also seems to become ubiquitous for these kinds of announcements.

SPEAKER_04 26:28

This is exactly the type of attraction that fever gets their hands into and involved with uh these types of immersive walkthrough experiences is like their bread and butter, their specialty lately. Um, but uh you know it'd be interesting to see how this does. And certainly it feels a little bit more permanent than a pop-up, um, but at the same time, it has the type of by visit once and maybe not ever again pop-up type experience. So um, you know, hopefully they will they've considered rotating this, you know, through so not fully pop-up, but a rotating exhibition, so to speak, in the space.

SPEAKER_05 27:08

I get the feeling that these kinds of virtual adventure deployments are being treated very much like uh an exhibit uh or exhibition uh that you would see in some museums and some galleries. We're here for nine months, uh we hope to generate X amount of walk-in traffic uh generated through our FIFA partnership, and then at the end of this, it will be pulled down. Well, uh the signs will be changed, the software will be updated, and it will be the cyberpunk or the Blade Runner or the Jumanti experience for another nine months. This is a model that has proven itself in the uh exhibition sector and the museum sector. I need to see the numbers here to see if this is going to generate uh the worthy revenue needed uh to keep on doing this rather than a one-hit wonder, because I'm very scared that if it's a one and done approach for this kind of experience, then that will have a knock-on effect when you update the software and put in a new experience because some people may just say, Oh, we've already done the VR walk around, I don't care what content's there. If the content isn't compelling enough and is dependent on his brand, then we can have that argument. We were having a couple of uh sound offs ago about is branding an IP enough to uh generate an entertainment business model. Jumping

Dave And Busters Design Pullback

SPEAKER_05 28:31

on, and we come to Dave and Buster's latest opening, Pennsylvania, 41,000 square, usual format, lots of balloons. Um, I was interested to hear that you know, from the reports, the people that walked around at the opening, that they thought that the arcade machine count was a little lower than they had expected from Dave and Buster's events. And of course, I begged and pleaded for those individuals that walked around the opening to check on the competitive socializing social debate component of the event, and they forgot to do that. So uh I I I can't tell you uh how much of that competitive socializing is still there or is incorporated into this uh new venue. I would say uh I'm seeing a real major pullback on femaleity from the pictures that I've got of the venue compared to other Dave and Buster's uh openings.

SPEAKER_04 29:33

That that's exactly what I was trying to find, some other pictures, because you know, when I the the handful, small handful of pictures, because it's so new, obviously, from you know on Google, the ones that have been posted, because Dave and Buster's website is terrible, you can never see pictures of the actual real venues. So uh you have to see them from other people, other guests who visited and posted them online. Um, but I was looking and it is it is stark. The the roof, the the ceiling, it's it's like this dismal gray, very poor lighting in the space, uh, like not accent lighting, there's no colorization. It is a bland, stark thing. And if this is the new path for Dave and Busters, it's this more like simplified, uh monotone type approach. I'm not digging it.

SPEAKER_05 30:19

I think if you go to the TripAdvisor reports and look at the pictures of the bar, the bar seems to have had the love and the entertainment uh has come off the weak sister. Uh my opinions are very uh written across me uh across me uh in blood, but uh I feel if you neglect the entertainment component trying to cut corners, then you're going to really regret this in the long run. I am getting the twinge of the uh blockbuster video effect at the moment regarding these guys. I will just leave it at that for the time being. I think we will be touching upon Dave and Busters in the coming sound off again, again, again. Another new opening under the uh Blockbusters, sorry, the Dave and Busters uh uh uh operation, of course, is main event. We haven't been talking about that many new main event openings. Uh so it was nice to uh to hear about uh Deer Park getting one in New York, uh 62,000 Square, bowling alley, climbing, environment, laser tag, amusement, and F B. And uh looking at this one, it also looks like uh they have eased back on the thality uh in the rollout of this particular facility. We're up to about 65 uh main events, and we don't hear a lot about main event uh from the Dave and Buster's reporting. So this was an interesting snapshot of the continuation of the brand.

SPEAKER_04 31:49

What I find interesting in this location is that they actually have added challenge rooms and some escape rooms into this uh this to this particular location, which is seems to me anyway to be a new, a relatively new thing in main events. At least the main events I've been in have not had escape rooms, have not had challenge rooms either. They, you know, typically have their bowling, their gravity rope, what they call gravity ropes, but the ropes course, and their arcade uh with some billiards and obviously F and V, um, and you know, maybe a human crane here and there, uh, but they've now added multi-ball uh and uh and escape rooms and adventure rooms, which I think is a departure uh historically.

SPEAKER_05 32:32

I have seen main event of uh facilities update by adding challenge uh areas, and these are very simplistic, um eight people maximum enclosures with uh some level of active entertainment or uh escape uh kind of uh environment. I haven't seen a new venue roll out with that already installed, so you're correct that this is something to keep an eye on. Though I get the feeling that this particular venue is uh an outlier regarding its layout, it does actually seem to be a mishmash of a couple of uh applications of main event uh layout. Again, this is one of their laser tag venues that doesn't have a gel blaster incorporated. And again, that's one that we need to be aware of that that kind of relationship may have come to an end and they may be now pivoting to a new type of laser tag approach. But again, we need to get inside one of the new venues uh as soon as possible.

SPEAKER_04 33:32

Um I think I was gonna say, I think it is telling, though, the fact that this is the brand new venue and they do have laser tag, but no gel blaster. So you know, we've seen many events that brought in gel blaster begin to remove them, and so this is definitely something we need to keep an eye on to see if this is uh an ongoing trend.

SPEAKER_05 33:51

I would like to say to future Kev, um, could you do uh uh an investigation into gel blast, uh gel blaster for us, Kevin, and see what the hell's going on there because we haven't heard anything about them since IALPA. So worthy a chase.

Middle East LBE Surge And Closure Warnings

SPEAKER_05 34:07

Moving on, and we come to a cluster of uh openings. We'll go into this in more detail uh in sound off, but Qatar has seen three new LBEs open in quick succession. Uh why these have clustered together, I think we can blame on the Middle East situation and that plans for an earlier opening have been impacted. We have the Play-Doh factory, uh, very similar to uh what we've talked about before. We have uh the NERF uh action experience, very similar to what we've talked about before with their Singapore opening and such like, and we have a continuation of a very popular brand out there, uh, the ground control uh operation, now its fourth facility opening here in Qatar, uh but in the Middle East in general, and all of this is under the ground control entertainment chain. So um that operation, I'm sure, has been under a lot of pressure to get these venues open, and now with the uh the hopeful green shoots from the Dover Peace uh within uh that particular area, um, it is now time for them to open and try and recoup some of the revenue that's been invested so far.

SPEAKER_04 35:29

Yeah, that's interesting. Um that they uh that they're opening all three of those locations under the ground control entertainment chain. Um so trying their hand at some IP, I guess. Um maybe uh maybe Hasbro had uh had had a deal or something and they decided to uh to to try out some IP. I mean the North Action uh the North Action, you know, we've seen those before. The Play-Doh Fun Factory, though, I don't know that I've seen a current installation of the Play-Doh Fun Factory. Um, so that uh I was trying to get a little bit more information about what type of attractions are in there. Um, you know, so it looks a little bit like a uh Crayola experience, uh, but obviously with Play-Doh, um, you know, we've had a conversation, gosh, what probably like 20 sound-offs ago now uh about these types of younger, um heavy IP-driven experiences and some of the struggles that they've had. So, you know, hopefully ground control, they're an experienced operator, they'll be able to uh see some success with with Play Doh that that others have not seen with other uh child, young child IP.

SPEAKER_05 36:32

I was at the C uh expo, the uh Saudi Entertainment and Amusement or Attractions Expo uh a couple of years back, and I was actually present when the Play-Doh uh and the NERF uh agreements were signed with ground control, and also our friends at seven were involved uh in a lot of this discussion. I get the feeling that there are a number of these kinds of uh LBEs based on this IP that are coming forwards, but again, we'll go into more detail on sound off charts. We've got one. Uh an Urban Air Um in Texas has closed down, opened 2016, uh it temporarily closed in February, um, or that's how it was uh reported in its trip advisor and such like, and then finally, uh end of April, they admitted that this is a permanent closing, doors closed, uh, and we're not sure what's happening to the facility. The usual churn of uh venues uh to be expected. That's the usual churn of facilities to be expected. This is the only one I can report. You know, we're into May now, coming to the end of May, and I haven't reported that many closings. I am concerned, I raised this as a red flag. Uh I'm sure we will be talking more about this in later issues.

SPEAKER_04 37:58

I absolutely think we will be talking more about this. There's uh no way that there are either not closures that have been happening and just not being announced, or that there uh or there's a backlog of people, you know, of venues holding on uh for a successful summer, etc., that just may not be able to make it through.

SPEAKER_05 38:19

I get that feeling that some people are holding on for grim death, even though they're in a death spiral, just to make sure that they can benefit from uh what's going uh, you know, what they hope will be a stacation, uh dividend, as it were. I'm calling this the constipation of the sector at the moment, as flippant as I always am. Uh, but this constipation will break. And if we are falsely holding on for hope, uh then uh it could be quite damaging for the industry going forwards if we don't address you you can't you can't build a dam in in front of this fast-moving water and hope that it's not going to blow apart. But anyway, that's enough from me. If you've got some information about that constipation problem I'm talking about, you can hit me up on LinkedIn or via uh the email. We have some uh new Stinger reports coming out. I promise, I promise, I promise. And uh we also have uh some other reports coming out linked to uh a little bit of what's been going on in the licensing and branding sector.

SPEAKER_04 39:27

Perfect. Perfect. All right. Well, great open and shut, Kevin, and we'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

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Influencer Marketing Rules Of Thumb

SPEAKER_02 40:08

That's r-a-y-di-us.co hello and welcome to promo pro tips with Chuck D.Monti. That is me, and today I'm gonna go over influencer marketing with you. Now, I think there are a vast amount of opinions on influencer marketing. Some people love them, some people hate it, some people um, you know, have too big of maybe expectations for them, uh, or don't understand it or are afraid of it. Or uh again, there's a wide range of um opinions on influencer marketing. So I think it all comes down to, excuse me, like many strategies uh and many things in business and marketing. It's it's it's um your expectations of it, it's trial and error. It is um, you know, not necessarily doing it once, it's patching it and doing it the proper way. Uh so I'm gonna today I want to give you sort of some some general rules of thumb uh and the best way uh to work with influencers, everything from finding them to collaborating with them to expectations and all that other stuff, right? So first and foremost, you need to find them, right? Uh I would suggest primarily using um TikTok or Instagram influencers for location-based entertainment brands. Now, if if I was looking for them, AI has changed a little bit. AI has made it a little bit easier maybe to find influencers. Obviously, you can go in your claws, your chat GPT, and say, hey, find me an influencer who focuses on families, uh, entertainment, uh, food, whatever in this area. Okay. Now, I will say when you are in more of a rural area, it does make it a little more difficult to find these influencers or micro influencers. Now, you could range from a micro influencer, which is somebody with any, you know, you know, a couple thousand to a hundred thousand followers, or you know, all the way to you know a larger influencer to, you know, uh millions of followers, right? Obviously, that's gonna change the price, okay? Uh, but finding them again, go to go to your your your AI tools, right? Type in certain your certain keywords, and family entertainment uh influencer in Chicago, you know, food influencer in whatever, right? City, name your city. Uh, try and find when you're looking for a city, uh, maybe not get too specific. Try and use, you know, for example, if you're in the twin cities, right? Maybe you wouldn't say uh, you know, St. Paul, you'd say twin cities, or you know, try and have a have a have a term that people use uh locally, right, to describe a certain DMA or certain area or whatever, right? Uh that'll help you find them. You can go on Google, you can do the search. You can literally type it right into TikTok andor Instagram, right? Uh try and I don't say be generic, but again, try and be use a term that people use locally to describe a certain area, um, and type in, you know, the the thing you look for, family entertainment, food influencer, whatever, right? Um, now, once you find them, you want to vet them. Are they real? Are they legit? Are they good? Uh, biggest giveaway on Instagram uh and TikTok is having a ton of followers and very little engagement on likes and comments, also having likes and comments hidden on Instagram, right? Uh they don't want to see who had said this and others have liked this, right? That's a dead giveaway, okay? Uh they're trying to hide the fact that they don't have a lot of uh interaction on there, okay? So vetting them, making sure they they are um you know real, uh they don't have a ton of followers and little engagements. Uh look at their content that they're posting, right? Do you like their content? Is there anything inappropriate that they're posting? Is there anything you don't want to be associated with with them as an influencer, right? Uh see if they've done any other collaboration post or uh influencer posts in the past, and have what was the engagement on those? Okay. Uh so that's all vetting them. Okay. Now contacting them. Uh you keep it very simple. Hey, my name is so and so, uh, representing XYZ place. Uh want to reach out and see what it looked like to potentially partner with you uh on a collaboration or influencer post, or you know, if you can let me know any details you have or whatever, right? Sometimes they have a nice pricing sheet, sometimes just go back and forth. I would get message as many as possible, right? Uh go through, message them, DM them, email them. Uh, some will have their email. For inquiries, some of you could just DM them, right? Uh just go through and contact them. Okay. Now the offer, I always try and barter first, right? Offer them just a free experience, a free birthday party, a free whatever to come down and and and um do a post for you, right? To do a review sort of uh bartering obviously always would always be the best, okay? Um if you can't barter, you know, you really gotta see what what the value is for you, what's in your budget, okay? Um, you know, can an influencer, a really big influencer, make a post and pack a place out? Sure, right? Uh, I probably think that's that's less frequent than you know than you would like to think. Um, but the exposure of it, it's hard to tell the long-lasting effects of something like that, right? If they post something, um, you know, how long until uh that starts to to bear fruit and people start coming in, okay? Um, so you know, be be conscious of that, right? What is that timeline like and what is the value on that, right? Maybe you're paying $500, $1,000 for somebody to come down and and do an influencer post uh for you, right? Um, so I would once you have that uh in in um you know, once you have that uh decided or or or negotiated what your what the the the payment is gonna be, um then you want to talk about what the post is gonna look like, right? See if they've done other posts. Hey, I like this other post you did, let's do something similar. Or maybe you might have an idea of something you want to do. Maybe you want to get them showing your you have a restaurant in your place, you want to do mainly food stuff or all the things that are in there, right? Uh what does the post look like? Okay. Uh once they post it, you want to make sure it's a collab, especially on Instagram, it's a collaboration post. So it shows up on both your timelines, right? And then last but not least, you want to get permission for them. If you really want to have a long-lasting effect and have an asset that you could use for the long term, okay, you want to get permission for them to turn this into an ad, right? So you're gonna get that asset. Now we can live on for much longer, right? It's gonna be social influence, third party, you know, uh uh uh sort of um you know validation, right? Uh so again, if you can get this and use that ad, even better, right? So now it's not just that one-time post that lives for a week or so until everybody sees it, and then that's it. You could use it over and over and over and over again, okay? So that's how I would work with an influencer. Uh again, I think if you do it and do it consistently, it can make a big, big impact on you, your your your your location, you know, visitors into your location and even followers on your social media who you could then further follow. Okay. Uh so hopefully that helps. Get busy working with some influencers.

SPEAKER_04 46:31

All right,

Season Five Plans And Sign Off

SPEAKER_04 46:32

perfect. Well, thanks for that, Chuck. And um, that is uh, you know, this is like you know, coming down to it. So we've got coming up this week, uh, sound off 123. Kevin reviews actually the recent licensing expo and more on Tuesday, June 2nd. And uh for those of you who are interested in what's coming up in season five, you can add suggestions right here. So that is definitely um hold on, what are we doing here? All right, now we got oh my gosh. All right, we're we're doing good, we're good. Um, but you can scan this QR code to give suggestions around what you want to see happen in season five. We already have some great suggestions. I'm excited. I think we're gonna be shuffling things up a little bit, shaking things up, making this a bit of a new show. And season five does kick off in uh late August, so uh early September, right around that time frame. We'll have a new season five and a new show already and lined up for you. So, anyway, that is some uh that is a wrap for this week's LBX show. This is Brandon Wiley signing off. Stay tuned and keep kicking ass.

Brandon Willey

Host